


Explosion

by Sera_Clay



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4413275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sera_Clay/pseuds/Sera_Clay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzington, angst, romance. So happy that filming of Season 3 has begun!<br/>Not by me, who does not own these characters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look Who

Six months from ignition to explosion. A hell of a long fuse.

Red lifted the small wooden crate carefully from the dock to the deck of his 38 foot sailboat, then swung himself aboard in happy anticipation of sharing a few new bottles of wine with Liz.

Their first month together had been awkward and difficult, alone on the boat, but then slowly they came to accommodate one another, and now Liz slept every night in Red's arms.

He was in heaven.

Tan and thin from months of sailing, he felt ten years younger, growing stronger every day. It seemed impossible that revealing the Fulcrum to his enemies could have produced such a positive result.

Stepping down into the cabin to find a tools to pry open the crate, Red froze at the sight of Liz, clad in her navy polka dot bikini, with her weapon leveled at him.

"Red." Her voice was flat and emotionless, but she lowered the weapon, then tilted her head at the galley. "Look who I found."

Red stepped forward to find Tom Keen, wearing nothing but a ragged pair of jean shorts, bound and gagged on the floor. Pale, slim, and muscular, his wide blue eyes shone with rage.

"Lizzie?" Red asked, spreading his hands open uncertainly. Why was she glaring at him?

Red hadn't spoken with Tom in more than six months.

"You hired Tom to lure me away. On his motorboat."

No question there.

Red spared a significant glance for Tom, and his eyes narrowed, then slid away from Red's cold stare.

He must have told her everything.

 

***

Red cleared his throat.

"Yes. I decided to attack the Cabal, and I wanted you safely out of the way."

She just stared at him. Then she spoke very quietly.

"I would never have known about my father. That you were my sin eater. That you were protecting me all along."

The knot in his shoulders eased slightly, even though she still seemed so cold, almost beyond anger. He attempted a smile, felt it slide off his face as she just continued to glare at him.

"Red, I believed him. Again. I made love with him that night."

Red couldn't help it. His mouth twisted in disgust as his stomach, always more sensitive to emotion than he would like, spasmed in protest. Shame lanced through him as her cheekbones colored beneath her light golden tan.

"You don't see me as a woman. I'm just a body, a thing, a chess piece to be moved around at your will."

Liz gestured rather dramatically with the gun, then her face set and she tucked it into the side of her bikini bottom.

"I'm leaving, Red. You can dispose of Jacob here any way you want."

Even in his distress and despair, Red couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, how powerful and dangerous and sexy she looked at this moment.

"Lizzie?"

He put all his love, all his heart into the plea. 

"The two of you can both go to hell."

She turned her back on him and disappeared into their small cabin, where as he stood staring down at Tom, he could hear the sound of clothes being thrown around, the zipper of her duffel bag as she completed her packing.

When she emerged, wearing a loose blue sundress over her bikini, her dark curls pulled back into a long, loose braid, she raised one finger as he opened his mouth to explain.

"Just don't. I'll never forgive you, Red. Never."

"Lizzie, it's too dangerous," he couldn't help but protest. This island was sparsely populated, but if she stayed for too long, someone was sure to recognize one of the FBI's most wanted. 

Her lips twisted in a bitter smile.

"Then you can arrange for my burial," she retorted.

As he stepped back from her in horror, she hefted the duffel onto one shoulder.

"I'd rather die than trust you again, Red," she told him, as she pushed past him and reached for the ladder that led to the deck. Halfway up, she turned and delivered her final thrust. "I was starting to love you. But all criminals are the same, liars who care only about themselves. I guess I'm not much of a profiler, am I?"

She disappeared into the bright sunshine above as Red stood frozen in his tracks, looking after her in disbelief.

A scrabbling sound from the galley floor caused him to turn his eyes back to Tom, who was desperately trying to free his wrists.

Red's eyes narrowed. 

"How well do you swim?" he asked Tom in a deliberately silky voice. 

***

Later that afternoon, Red showered, shaved, and dressed with care for a foray into town. He wore a pale jade, short sleeve linen shirt, her favorite, and loose cream linen slacks, along with the straw fedora with the bright paisley band she'd selected over his objections at their last port of call.

He expected to find her sitting in a cafe by the water, or drinking in one of the dive bars popular with cruisers and expats.

Nothing.

There were two flights off the island that afternoon, but she wasn't on either of them.

Nor had any of the boats for sail been purchased, not that her sailing skills, while improving with each passage, were sufficient in his opinion for her to safely singlehand even from one island to the next.

She had enough money with her from his stash in the bulkhead to buy whatever she wanted.

Not that he begrudged her any of it, but so much untraceable cash told its own story.

Red was hot, sweaty, and frankly worried by the time he stopped searching, long after sunset. He had been prepared to plead and beg, to offer her anything just to allow him to take her to a larger port where she could vanish with greater ease and safety.

But she was somehow already gone. Untraceably gone.

And he could no longer escape the pain of his broken heart, the loneliness that settled over him as he made his way back down the dock.

Some of the finest red wines in the world awaited him in the unopened crate on his sailboat. Tonight, he planned to drink them like water.

***

Alexander McCrae was plump and cheerful, with a bright red face and a thick shock a pure white hair. Liz had spotted him their first day in port, a cheerful widower, eyeing women young and old alike from the high deck of his aging sailboat the Bonny Lassie IV, always sipping at a mug of coffee and offering all but unintelligible greetings in his thick Scottish accent.

As soon as she left the harbor and ascertained Red was not in pursuit, she doubled and back and made her way to the Lassie.

They set sail less than an hour later on the waning tide, with McCrae on her advice informing the harbor master that a family member had died, and he needed to depart posthaste for the funeral. An extra $100 to the harbormaster ensured that the Lassie's departure was logged a generous two hours before Liz confronted Red.

And she set other measures, distractions, in motion as well.

An old purse, a passport she needed to discard, a little cash. She sent them in one direction with a group of young Italians with a fast motor yacht.

She paid a woman in a wig to rent a room in the old town and appear only after dark to drink wine on the terrace behind the house.

Small distractions.

Once she reached a major city and had access to more funds, she'd arrange a few more.

For now, she had the long, lazy weeks of their southward passage to learn to sail, to navigate, to forget the last five months with Red.

If only the gentle rocking motion of the sailboat didn't keep causing her to remember.

"You're gonna love this, Lizzie!"

How many times Red had said that phrase to her, and she always did. 

Exotic food he cooked for her, unusual drinks, music and books and films. It wasn't so much that their tastes were similar, but that he introduced her to his favorites and explained why she should love them.

"Convince me this is real."

The night she first kissed him on deck, by moonlight. Not a full moon, but a mere sliver, visible through drifting shreds of black and gray clouds. His deep voice almost choked silent with emotion after he kissed her back.

"Call my bluff."

His arms open wide, his darkly tan chest shaking with the force of his laughter as he sprawled naked beneath her, daring her to hold out longer than he could. The way he lavished her with caresses, practiced and relentless, until to her shock she lost that particular bet, the familiar pleasure magnified by the intensity of trying to hold herself back.

She remembered, again and again.


	2. Finished?

"Just answer a few questions. Then I'll be gone."

Dembe Zuma swirled his beer in the bottom of his glass before responding to the slight, blond woman sitting opposite him at the long beer hall table.

He hadn't expected Elizabeth Keen when he received the coded request to meet and provide assistance to a trusted asset in Munich.

"Only with the understanding that I will relay this entire conversation to Raymond," he finally answered.

"Done."

As she asked him her questions, she spoke English, but with a slight lilt that sounded Scottish. Dembe frowned inwardly. Living in Oxford once again, he had contacts throughout Great Britain. If she was hiding in his backyard, in plain sight, he should have known.

"Status of the cabal?"

Dembe drained his beer and motioned to the waitress for another. 

"Still active, but hampered somewhat by the Fulcrum."

She nodded, then took another sip of her own beer before giving him a mock flirtatious smile as the waitress approached. He responded in kind.

"And Red?"

Her eyes were violet behind colored contact lenses, enhanced by the garish make-up that matched her long, loose dress of purple and lavender Indian gauze. A colorful figure, she would be remembered as eccentric. Not suspicious or secretive, as one might have expected from a woman still listed on the FBI's most wanted list, although her position was dropping fast as new criminals were added.

"Does it matter?"

She went still and wary at his quick response, and he watched her as she clutched at her beer glass, probably to stifle that tell-tale rub at her scar. The one Red always warned him to look for, as a measure of her fear.

"Elizabeth, he's worried. He wants to know you are safe."

Dembe watched her mouth move, just a twist of her lips. He didn't know her current name; if she walked out, he'd have to let her go.

No time for subtlety.

"Why does it matter whether he's drowned himself in a bottle, or sought comfort in the arms of another woman?"

Her gaze was level, almost perfectly unaffected. Just a flicker of her long lashes betrayed her reaction.

"He's done neither of those things," she returned, leaning across the table and lowering her voice. "He's just gone on with his plans. Of course he knows I'm safe."

She batted her eyelashes at him as the waitress passed, and he forced himself to look deliberately down the front of her dress.

Liz almost burst into giggles and he shook his head as if in dismay. They had been friends, once.

"I'm still drawing funds from his accounts - he knows perfectly well I'm alive," she protested. 

"Raymond loves you, Elizabeth." Dembe touched the rim of his all but full beer mug, circled it with one finger. "However well, or poorly, he has handled your departure, it has nothing to do with the depth of his feelings."

Liz took a slow sip of beer before she spoke again.

"The way he behaves isn't compatible with love," she said finally. Her eyes lifted from her beer to meet his, and Dembe realized, impossibly, that she was asking him for an explanation. One that would allow her to accept what had happened. He hit as hard as he dared.

"He would never abandon you. Allow you to think he was dead."

A dive boat had reported one of her alias names drowned more than a month after she left Red. Dembe was part of the team that investigated and managed to prove she had not been on board that day.

She flushed, the hectic color bright against her dyed blond curls. She took a deeper sip of her beer.

"Elizabeth, a great many people use those accounts on a daily basis."

Now she appeared almost contrite. 

"Do you want to see him?"

She started to nod, he saw the faintest bob of her head, then she looked down into her beer.

"No, it's finished, Dembe," she returned. Her shoulders drooped as she spoke.

"Not for Raymond, and not, I think, for you."

She reached out and covered his hand with her own. Her fingers were decorated with cheap silver rings, and her nails were painted a glossy purple, flecked with glitter.

"How is he, really?"

Dembe smiled inwardly. 

"Come with me and see for yourself?"

As expected, she countered at once.

"Not now. I'll let you know. Do you have a phone?"

Without further words, he passed her a burner phone, then tossed money on the table for their drinks. As he smiled at the waitress to inform her in his excellent German to keep the change, Liz slipped away and was lost in the crowd.

No matter. He would hear from her again.

***

"Lizzie?"

Red rolled over in bed and groaned despite the all but complete darkness of his luxurious hotel room.

Too much to drink yet again. His mouth tasted foul and his head swam as his stomach heaved internally at the slightest motion.

He didn't want to be awake.

Once again, he'd awakened with his arms outstretched, feeling for the warmth of the woman he'd lost through his own cowardice.

He should have told her about Tom.

What was wrong with him, making the same mistake twice? Red prided himself on learning from his mistakes, his failures.

Why did Liz send his judgment all to hell? 

When he hired Tom Keen the second time, not just to clear her name, but also to try and locate the Fulcrum, Red knew he was taking a terrible risk. That Tom did manage to protect Liz, as instructed, was to his credit, and the only reason the younger man was still alive, despite what Red personally considered a betrayal - Tom's pitiful attempts to convince Liz to love him again.

But he couldn't help but understand.

He himself would do anything to go back to those happy days on the water. To hold her in his arms again and beg for her forgiveness.

Lying on his back in the darkness, Red relived the last time he saw her once again. Was there anything he could have said, or done, to make her stay?

Was she even still alive?

His enemies would have paraded her dead body before him, but his friends? If she had inadvertently crossed them, they would have buried her deep and moved on without even telling him. He hadn't risked letting anyone but his very closest associates know how much she meant to him. 

Now that she was gone, even his efforts to locate her were necessarily constrained by his fear of attracting unwelcome attention if he found her.

Red lay in his lonely bed, remembering the warmth of her curled against him, the soft sounds she made when she kissed him in the morning before she was fully awake. The way her arms were always open to him, her smile always welcoming.

Trying to hold back his tears made his head pound even more violently. At last, he turned his face into the pillow and allowed himself to weep silently for a few moments before grinding his teeth hard and swallowing down his pain.

He needed a shower, and some aspirin, and some coffee. Not necessarily in that order.

***

Liz settled into her rather spartan hotel room, decorated in cool, modern tones of blue and cream, and plugged in her laptop. Her current cover was doctoral research on Europe's gypsies, which provided her with an excuse to travel frequently and develop contacts among the Roma.

She had learned some phrases in Romany, and a little of their culture, during a murder investigation in the Bronx. Her contacts there had facilitated a few introductions, which generous gifts of Red's money had enhanced.

She wrote every day, unsure if her current passport was backed by sufficient history to ever publish, but enjoying the research that her speculations required.

As she looked through the sheaf of notes from her last interview, though, she kept stopping and thinking about Red. 

How, if ever, could they recover from his betrayal? Liz trusted only Dembe and Mr. Kaplan, because she had encountered them initially as Red's associates. How could she ever feel safe in his company again, knowing that anyone she met, business contacts or friends, could be secretly in his employ?

Her own father Sam knew Red, took his money to pay for her schooling.

She had to escape his shadow to even think about him properly. Manipulator. Human chessmaster. The man she didn't want to love.

Raymond Reddington.

She told the elderly Rom she interviewed the previous week that she was a recent widow.

He shook his head sadly, graying curls bouncing beneath his black wool cap.

"You never recover from that loss, do you?" he said sympathetically.

"No," she responded somberly, thinking of Red. 

"Twenty years my Sylvia is gone, and still, I miss her," he commiserated. "Our daughters, our granddaughters - they all have her eyes."

Liz shook her head, feeling a few strands of her dyed blond hair slipping from her loose bun to fall about her face.

"We have ... had no children," she responded. Would Red have wanted children some day? Would he have been willing to adopt? The subject had never come up between them. 

The old man looked even sadder.

"Memory fades," he told her. "I never imagined I could forget the sound of her voice, singing ..."

His words trailed off as Liz blinked back unwelcome tears.

The sound of Red's deep voice, singing in the morning up on deck, foolish old songs to which she now knew all the words.

How happy they had been together.

If she was really finished with him, shouldn't she want to forget?


	3. Dembe in Action

Dembe brokered the meeting, sat on the park bench next to Red until she arrived.

Then he moved out of sight among the trees, uphill, with a commanding view of the manicured lawn leading down to the ornamental lake. Mist rose into the dawn air as it warmed, hiding the surrounding buildings of the city and blurring the shapes of the careful plantings around the fountains near the street.

Only a few early walkers. Minimal risk. A brief conversation should be safe.

Liz arrived in a long black coat, carrying a small umbrella. Her scarf, Dembe was disappointed to see, was twisted wool in dark tones of blue and green. Sad colors.

Red was resplendent in a fine new suit and fedora, his cashmere overcoat flung open, a purple scarf at his throat.

She stood looking down at Red for a few moments until he grudgingly shifted from near the center of the bench to one side.

She seated herself at the other end, not turning to face him or touching him at all.

Dembe was too far away to hear their words, but he was excellent at reading lips.

"Are you well?" Red asked.

"Yes."

There was a slight pause before she spoke again.

"And you?"

"I've been better."

"The cabal?'

He shrugged.

"Time will tell."

They both continued staring forward, with cold, distant expressions. None of what they were saying to each other justified the risk of this meeting.

Dembe growled unhappily to himself. Raymond would not be happy with him, in fact quite the opposite. But something had to be done.

He rose from concealment and strode down the hill towards them. 

Red was instantly alert, hand on his weapon, and Liz followed shortly with a grab for her purse.

"No, there is no immediate threat." Dembe raised one hand, saw them both relax just slightly without looking at each other. "But you both need to come with me to the car. Now."

He turned and strode in the direction he had parked the Mercedes, trusting them both to follow. Only once they were both safely ensconced in the back seat, and he had pulled into traffic, did he venture to say more.

"We'll be on the autobahn for at least twenty minutes. Talk. Really talk."

Then he raised the privacy glass despite their expressions of protest and guided the big car out of the city at the highest speed he could manage safely.

No, Raymond would not be happy at all.

***

Liz glanced over at Red and instantly discarded any notion of accusing him of setting this up. He looked almost apoplectic as he drew himself away from her into the far corner of the seat.

"Well, that was unexpected," she said, after a few moments of silence.

Red just shook his head without speaking, clearly too upset to trust his tongue. Liz turned a little to face him, watching curiously as he closed his eyes, his mouth working in a way that suggested he was thinking furiously.

So this is what he looked like in a rage, she thought, her nerves on high alert as Red clenched and unclenched his fists, noticing the smallest details come into high focus - the platinum band of his Rolex, the scatter of pale hair on his fingers, darker at his wrists against his immaculate cuffs. His neatly manicured nails.

At last he opened his eyes and gave her a wintry smile.

"Do we have anything to talk about, Elizabeth?"

Cold disdain. Somehow, that made her more comfortable. After her meeting with Dembe, Liz had been forced to acknowledge to herself how cruel that particular distraction had been. Especially given that she wasn't the only woman with access to Red's contingency accounts. Her deliberate weekly withdrawals hadn't reassured him of her safety at all.

She deserved his disdain, and more. 

Red had cared for her and kept her safe. Even if it hurt him for her to leave, even if he deserved to be hurt, Liz was so ashamed that she had allowed him to think, even for a short time, that she was dead.

"I'm sorry for the way I left."

The words sounded hollow, like a lie. They hung in the air between them. 

Red was breathing through his nose, and she wondered suddenly if he was biting back some vicious retort.

They have had so many important conversations in the back of cars just like this one. Luxurious leather, comfortable seats, the hush that comes from shutting out the world behind excellent soundproofing and mirrored, bulletproof glass.

"I mean ..." Liz started to correct herself, then paused mid-sentence as Red, uncharacteristically, interrupted her.

"I'm sorry you left." His voice was flat and emotionless. He might as well have been giving orders over the phone to his stockbroker, the way she's heard him do so many times. "I wanted you to stay. I wanted to explain."

His words left no room for her to respond. There was no question involved, no request for forgiveness. For her to return to him.

Liz swallowed hard. Was Dembe's comment about other women a warning? Surely he wouldn't have pulled this stunt if there was no chance?

"How can you possibly explain?"

Her thoughts ground unhappily to a stop as she heard herself ask the question.

Do they have any chance to get past this? Not back to what they had, but some way forward, together?

***

She was winter pale, thin, and visibly unhappy, for all that she put on a good show.

Red's eyes wanted to devour her, and his hands ached with the effort of not reaching out to touch her. To assure himself that she was actually here, and real, and alive.

He was prepared, even now, to grovel. But not to weep.

Only strength would help his cause. His only value to her now was as a resource. As protection. He couldn't allow any vulnerability to cause her to doubt him.

But to answer her question, he was forced to discuss that past time of weakness.

"I can tell you why, at that particular time, Tom's protection was worth what he charged me for it," Red said finally.

Liz inclined her head, then fixed her unnerving violet eyes on his face. He knew they were just colored lenses, but he longed for her familiar blue gaze.

"In order to make my case, to show the Fulcrum to a select group of investigative journalists, I needed to pull together many of my most trusted operatives."

He blinked as she just stared at him, listening without reacting.

"I had to strike first, but to do so, I endangered my people. My own safety. If we were betrayed to the cabal, at that particular time, I would not have been able to get you safely out of the country if the FBI refused to believe in your innocence."

She nodded slowly, looking down at her lap. She was clutching her purse hard with both hands, as if afraid he would pull it away.

"I told you I was capable of following my own leads," she responded finally. "I wasn't willing to accept your help."

"Yeah."

"You knew I would accept help from Tom."

He nodded, writhing inwardly at the self-loathing in her tone.

They drove for a a little longer without speaking.

The big car turned, reversing course back towards town. Half of their time together gone already.

Red had thought that loving her from a distance when they worked together on blacklisters was the worst of torments. Now he knew that knowing the taste of her mouth, the feel of her body beneath him, when he didn't even dare touch her hand, was the worst.

At least she was alive. He had to focus on that. Red set his jaw to endure the rest of the conversation.

***

Liz stared at Red as she tried to make sense of his explanation. After their months in the sun, sailing in very casual dress, she had somehow forgotten the impression he made in a suit. He looked powerful and wealthy and arrogant. His carefully knotted silk tie probably cost more than her entire outfit.

The tilt of his dark fedora over his cold, distant gaze warned her to keep her distance. He smelled like cologne and cigars, not coconut oil and ocean salt.

They didn't have much more time together. She had to make a decision.

"Is that everything?" she asked him, frowning in the hopes that he wouldn't return some flippant retort.

To her surprise, Red shook his head, looking even more weary and uncomfortable.

"No, Tom has been in my employ since he returned from Germany. I asked him to locate the Fulcrum, without explaining exactly what it contained."

"So that's why he came to my motel room? I wondered how he found me," Liz responded, trying to make sense of the lines at the sides of Red's mouth. Regret, shame, resignation?

"He shook his head to tell us he hadn't found it, that night Dembe and I came to your door," Red said quietly. "We expected to find him there."

Liz nodded, several more puzzle pieces falling into place. Red had used Tom the way he used her, ruthlessly. Unsparing of their feelings.

"I told him to pretend to be in love with you," Red went on. "He said it wouldn't work, but I promised him it would."

Liz stared down at her purse for a moment, sorrow and rage clamping at her heart. Completely unsparing of his own feelings, as well. While under the influence of some potent local rum, he had confessed to falling in love with her in the first year they worked together.

"And what if I had chosen Tom? Chosen to go with him on that boat?"

"You would have been free, and safe."

Red's voice was hard, his eyes almost blank, as if he was looking far away, into that possible future.

"You would never have come for me?" She had to ask, even at the risk of betraying her own conflicted feelings.

Red was the one who looked down, now, and he rubbed his palms slowly on his thighs, as if drying away moisture, not that any marks showed on the fine pin-striped wool of his dress trousers.

That wasn't an answer.


	4. Talking

They didn't have much more time. If he was going to ask her, it had to be now.

He wanted a drink. Or maybe two. 

"I'm here, now," he said at last. He stilled his nervous hands with an effort, clasped them together to avoid reaching for her fingers. "It would mean so very much to me, Elizabeth, to know that you are safe and well. On an ongoing basis."

He looked straight at her, trying to put his plea into his wordless gaze.

She flushed and looked down at her purse.

"For how long?"

Red blinked, and stared at the purse as well. Of cheap black leather, the handle was decorated with silver plated symbols. A crescent moon, a few stars. 

Forever. Until the day he died. Or until she forgave him, took him back.

That all sounded too dramatic. And impossible. If he spoke, he was going to sob.

He wanted an entire bottle.

The car was slowing, transitioning down off the autobahn onto the city streets.

She spoke again, seemingly having realized he wasn't going to answer.

"Red, I'm building a new life. Learning to keep myself safe. Trying to figure out who I am."

"You'll stay in touch with Dembe?" He managed to get the words out, his lips barely moving, his voice emerging tiny from a small, tight place in his throat.

She nodded, still not looking at him.

The familiar curve of her stubborn jaw. Those small, strong hands that have touched every inch of his skin, tended his wounds, killed for him.

Will he ever see them again?

The car slowed further as it angled towards the curb.

He waited too long.

"Well, then, Lizzie ..." he began, as he tried to think of something to say that wasn't cutting or completely abject. Something charming, some cleverly worded wish for her future happiness.

Without him.

Her eyes flew to his face in shock. He meant to say Elizabeth. He did.

The car stopped. She glanced around for the door handle.

He couldn't help himself.

Red pitched forward and buried his face in her lap, his face pressed against her purse, feeling the bones of her hips even through her heavy coat as he clutched at her waist.

***

Liz stared down at the back of Red's close-shorn head. She knew the exact texture of that silver stubble, where it was smooth, and where it was scratchy. 

"Red?" she said, a little helplessly. She managed to work her purse free and set it on the seat beside her, as he pressed his face deeper into her lap, clung to the back of her coat as if she were the only thing holding him from falling off a cliff.

It was awkward and inelegant and desperate, and it moved her almost to tears.

Very lightly, she caressed the back of Red's head. Could she do this? Could she try again, knowing him as she did now? Knowing that if and when it came to a choice, he would choose to save her at any cost? To her, to himself? To anyone in his orbit?

"Red?"

He nodded against her lap but didn't raise his face. She suspected he was crying. She stroked the top of his head, the soft fuzz where his hair was continuing to recede. 

"No more secrets, ok?"

He nodded again, and she rummaged in her purse for a handkerchief. One of his large linen squares, monogrammed and slightly crumpled, but clean.

"Here."

He took it, sat up, and turned his face away.

She looked out the opposite window, listening to him snuffling and blowing his nose.

Dembe had been parked at the curb for such a long time now.

"Why hasn't Dembe opened the door yet?" she asked, finally. Not wanting to leave, but needing somehow to break the silence.

A tapping sound.

She turned her head to see Red tapping the wooden inlay beside to an unobtrusive control close to the intercom. A privacy light. Dembe was waiting for a signal.

Liz screwed up her courage and looked at him. 

His face was composed and still, shadowed by his fedora, but his eyes were red-rimmed and his lips quivered.

Liz slid across the seat, put her head on his shoulder, her arms around him as he leaned forward and embraced her in return. When she tipped her head back and kissed him, the shock of desire lancing through her at his touch both welcome and unexpected.

Whatever her doubts, her heart knew she was home.

As they broke the kiss, she smiled shakily at Red and said "We need to thank Dembe."

"He'll want to know where to take us," Red returned, his voice low and husky. His arms gathered her tighter.

Liz lidded her eyes at him.

"My place or yours?"


End file.
